Sacrifice. Paul Finch

meshed, naked twigs. ‘What … what if it’s someone messing around?’

      ‘All the way out here?’

      She pondered that, inwardly agreeing that it seemed unlikely, but still discomforted. ‘Look, I definitely heard something …’

      ‘There are night birds, you know.’

      ‘In February?’

      He shrugged. ‘Maybe. Hey … if someone’s here, and … I dunno, if they want to watch us, would they give themselves away by making daft noises?’

      ‘Watch us?’ She looked dismayed by the mere thought. ‘You mean like doggers?’

      ‘Well … yeah. But what are the chances of that at this hour?’

      Even as he said this Cheryl thought she glimpsed movement: a black shadow flitting out of sight behind the even blacker pillar of a tree-trunk. She squealed and grabbed Todd’s hand. ‘There’s someone out there, I know it!’

      ‘Cheryl, there’s no one. It’s three in the morning!’

      She peered into the encircling darkness, and he could tell that she was genuinely frightened.

      ‘What did you think you saw?’ he asked quietly.

      ‘I don’t know. It could have been a trick of the light …’

      ‘There is no light.’

      Todd opened the car door and jumped out, his smoky breath wreathed around him as he scanned the nearby trees. Fleetingly, he too felt vulnerable. In darkness this opaque someone could be very near and he wouldn’t necessarily see them. But it was ridiculous, surely? No one would be all the way …

      Something flickered at the corner of his vision. He spun in that direction; a low bough on the car park’s edge was quivering, as if someone had just brushed past it.

      ‘Hey!’ he called, striding quickly over there. ‘Hey, you fucking pervert!’

      ‘Todd, don’t!’ Cheryl hissed.

      ‘Why don’t you go back to the internet and knock a quick one off over some underagers, eh?’

      ‘Todd!’

      He halted at the edge of the undergrowth, right next to the quivering bough. ‘There’s nothing here for you tonight … you got it?’ His eyes slowly attuned as he peered into the foliage, though it diminished quickly into a foggy gloom.

      In truth, he’d only half heard the keening cry that had distracted Cheryl. But now that he pondered it, there had been something vaguely fake about it, as if – how had Cheryl put it? – someone was messing around. Again, Todd scanned the murky woodland, his ears pricked. It was so still, so quiet, as though the roots, the branches, the bark were listening back to him. He hung on there for several more seconds, defying someone to respond.

      ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ Cheryl said, coming up behind, heels clattering the tarmac.

      He shrugged. ‘Just a precaution.’

      ‘You’ll make them angry.’

      ‘Cheryl, there’s no one here, okay? I shouted on the off chance, but it’s a bit late at night for someone to be creeping around.’

      She took his arm in a tight grip. ‘Right, fine … enough showing off, alright?’

      ‘I’m not showing off.’

      She led him back to the car. ‘You don’t have to do stuff like that to impress me …’

      Her words tailed off as they stumbled to a standstill.

      An electric light was visible about seventy yards away, in the farthest corner of the car park. It was a single, feebly glowing bulb, only just managing to illuminate the narrow doorway underneath it, which they knew gave access to a small public lavatory. But this was the first time either of them had noticed it.

      ‘When did that get switched on?’ Cheryl asked quietly.

      Todd mused. ‘Must’ve been on all the time.’

      ‘I didn’t see it when we first arrived.’

      ‘Were you looking?’

      ‘No, but surely we’d have spotted it?’

      Todd started towards it, slowly at first but then with purpose.

      ‘What are we doing now?’ Cheryl asked, following, still clutching his arm.

      ‘Just seeing if there’s anyone there.’

      ‘Er … why?’

      ‘Because like you say, we don’t want spectators!’

      ‘But you said there’d be no one here at this hour.’

      Todd had no immediate answer to that. It was possible they’d simply driven in here and hadn’t observed that the lavatory’s exterior light was on, but he doubted it. The clicking of their footfalls echoed eerily as they approached the tiny structure, its simple square dimensions slowly coming into view. They were about thirty yards away when its light winked off – they froze mid-stride – and then winked on again.

      ‘Not working properly,’ Todd stated. The exterior light flickered several times more, finally went off again, and then stayed off. ‘Just wait here … I’ll go and check.’

      Cheryl remained where she was while Todd ventured forward over the last few yards, one eye on the lavatory’s half-open door behind which lay dank blackness, the other on the deep, dim undergrowth at the building’s rear. That too lay thick, motionless and impenetrable.

      The lavatory was little more in size than a suburban outhouse. It was built from red brick and when seen in daylight, written all over with obscene slogans. Inside, it comprised a single narrow passage with a broken washbasin at the far end, and two cubicles that, when he’d gone in there once before to take a leak, were as dirty and smelly as animal stalls. Todd poked his head around the door first and fumbled along the jamb for a switch. He encountered two, and when he threw the first the interior bulb flickered to life, revealing an unwashed tile floor and damp plaster walls. He glanced into both cubicles. The first was empty and the toilet lid closed, but in the second the lid was open and someone had daubed the bowl’s fecal contents all over the surrounding woodwork in broad smears, at one point attempting to write something with it. Not surprisingly, the stench in there was appalling, and Todd was grateful to beat a hasty retreat. As he exited, the internal light also began flickering and buzzing loudly.

      ‘Loose connections,’ he said, rejoining Cheryl outside. ‘Probably been going on and off all day.’

      ‘But why would it be on in the first place?’ she asked as he walked her back across the car park.

      ‘Someone left it on … it’s no big deal.’

      ‘Listen, Todd …’ She glanced again at the encircling woodland, clotted with night-mist. ‘I think we should just go home.’

      They’d now reached the Polo, and he gazed at her across its roof, hugely disappointed. ‘Oh … come on, Cheryl!’

      She regarded him carefully. Todd was every inch the gentleman – he’d been so quick to protect her honour then, even against foes that were possibly imaginary – but he was a man too, and they hadn’t got frisky with each other for over a week. No wonder he looked so dejected.

      ‘Well at least get close to the road,’ she said, ‘so we can make a quick getaway if we need to.’

      ‘Whatever you say.’

      They climbed in together. Todd twisted the key, put the Polo back in gear, and nosed it around in a three-point turn. Finger-like twigs groped at the windscreen and then at the side windows as the vehicle manoeuvred. As they drove back across the car park, Cheryl glanced towards the lavatory block. Both its internal and external lights had